


A Cairn for Pegasus

by Caivu



Category: Batman (Comics), Batwoman (Comic), DCU, DCU (Comics), Detective Comics (Comics)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon Continuation, Continuity Nods, Desert, F/F, Gap Filler, Gen, Historical References, Inspired by Real Events, Road Trips, Some Fluff, Vacation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-07
Updated: 2019-04-07
Packaged: 2020-01-06 12:06:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18388118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caivu/pseuds/Caivu
Summary: An expansion on a brief glimpse of a scene in Batwoman (2017) #18 where Kate and Renee visit Monument Valley. Ties in some things from other comics as well as my own stories.Takes place after Batwoman: Queen of Phantoms.





	A Cairn for Pegasus

Kate took the bare dirt road almost fast enough to make Renee worried. But then what was the point of bringing a Mustang into the desert if you didn't go tear-assing around a little and let it live up to its name?

They had made great time to Monument Valley, due in no small part to Kate's similar speeds on the highways. Only now was the sun starting to set, and before this current excursion, Renee had taken a wealth of photos of the golden buttes. It was just had she had imagined it would be. Just as she had seen.

Now, with Kate at the wheel to take them out of the valley and find a motel for the night, they were headed for a short detour. Something Kate "needed to do." She had let her fauxhawk grow since they'd started dating again, and the wind made it flap and stand upright like the comb of a rooster as they tore around corners, leaving dust billowing in their wake.

Finally, Kate slowed on a straightaway and coasted to a stop. The trailing cloud curled around the convertible as she shut off the engine and folded up her aviators.

"Got your flashlight?" she asked, exiting the car. Her voice was hoarse.

Renee's light was a small one, clipped to her keys. She clicked it on and followed. "Right here."

"Water?"

Renee grabbed a new bottle from the back seat. "Yep."

She glanced around. Nothing out of the ordinary... apart from a gleaming silver speck to the west, perhaps two miles away, between a pair of small buttes.

 _What_ is _that?_

"This way," Kate said, and headed for the speck across wild ground.

Renee jogged a bit to catch Kate's long strides. "You gonna finally tell me what this is?"

Kate sighed, expression downcast. "I'm paying my respects."

\----

They had started a cross-country drive the past Monday, a movie-type road trip in a '68 Shelby Mustang, one from Kate's collection. Their destination was Reno, where they had been since Thursday to watch Bette, Kate's cousin, box for the national collegiate lightweight title. She had won the belt, no surprise; a unanimous decision after a tough final against Air Force. As on the first two nights of the tournament, Kate had been electric at the win. Just as she had in February, when Renee had joined her at West Point's in-house championship, where she'd met Bette for the first time after missing the previous year due to work. Good kid, that Bette. So similar to and yet so different from Kate.

They'd gone out for a celebratory dinner with the USMA teams, who had both placed first, and Renee found that same electricity there. It was infectious. And it lingered even hours later, when she and Kate returned to their hotel room for the night.

Sleep didn't find her afterward. Her mind buzzed with the energy of the weekend. In that mindset, even the ceiling seemed interesting, or the soft drone of late-night traffic, or the cool sheets on her bare skin.

She remembered Kairos.

Her dosage had been a fraction of Kate's, and over eighteen months ago now. But the visions returned from time to time, now almost certainly as actual memories than any residuals in her system. Regardless, Renee knew not to dwell on them, recognizing the danger and not wanting to become the proverbial milkmaid. But she had seen tonight before.

She had seen herself in bed again with Kate; this very bed. The wallpaper, the framed black-and-white flower still-lifes on the wall, the green blinking light of the smoke alarm; all of it matched. Her vision was coming true.

It was wrong to linger on that possible future, she knew that. But acting on it? Maybe that wasn't so bad. Maybe it was time to bring another glimpse into reality.

"Kate," she finally whispered into the dark. It was Sunday, just after midnight.

A hitch in the hiss of Kate's snoring beside her. "Hmm."

"I've got a crazy idea," Renee said.

"Ooh." Kate had shouted her voice out on Thursday night as she watched Bette smear a UCLA boxer's nose all over her face with crisp jabs, and again on the next two nights; now it was little more than a croak. A hint of North Carolina had also crept in with her sleepiness.

A rustle as Kate rolled to her right side. "If it's like the idea you had _last_ night..."

Renee had to smile at that. Using her own line on her from way back when.

"Later," Renee said. "Listen... I know this is last-minute... but how 'bout a more scenic route back?" They had taken the fastest route here (by land, at least), through Chicago and Omaha and Salt Lake City, but she had another idea now.

"What kind of scenic route?"

"Monument Valley," Renee said. "I've always wanted to see it. And it wouldn't add a whole lotta time."

A small pause. "Got it all planned, huh?"

"Early checkout at 6, eat on the road, and we'll get there just before sunset if we make good time."

She felt Kate brush a thumb across her cheekbone. "Sounds romantic. Do we find a tiny rustic motel by the highway tomorrow night?"

"We do," Renee said. "And that's where my _other_ crazy idea happens."

Kate chuckled. "Twist my arm, why don't ya?"

Renee did just that, finding Kate's left bicep and giving it a squeeze. She felt it tighten in her grip, and ran her fingers across the old bullet scar to Kate's shoulder, as round and firm as a softball. Right where the bluebird would be. 

"Okay," Kate said. "Can't be any worse than Appleton."

\----

They dozed a few more hours, then whirlwinded through showering and dressing and packing while the sun was still far from up. When it was, they were an hour and several selfies outside Reno, with Kate seeming to dare any highway patrol to pull her over.

Hours and asphalt flew by under them, with a bright, cool sun above.

Kate was in a different mood today, Renee noted. Not completely; she had still been game for those silly pictures. But there was definitely a quietness to her, greater than usual, that had only increased with the miles driven. Renee figured she was starting to feel a bit guilty for being off the job so long. She herself was, even with more accrued paid leave than she could reasonably spend.

She brought it up after they crossed into Arizona, just after two in the afternoon.

"You okay?"she asked as they headed out of a rest stop.

"Yeah," Kate said. "Just... thinking."

"Is it because you saw this? Back when we nabbed Clock King?"

Kate raised her sunglasses. "Is _that_ why we're out here?"

"Not _entirely_. I really _have_ have wanted to visit Monument Valley. But since we've both seen it..."

"Hey now. _You_ told _me_ that was dangerous."

"Dwelling. Not doing." She got in driver's seat of the Mustang. "You _do_ want what you saw, right?"

Kate took her hand. "Yes."

Renee returned the squeeze. "Then let's go do."

She pulled out, and they continued down the highway.

"I guess it's only fair to tell you..." Kate said. "I wasn't just thinking about that vision." Renee could barely hear her over the engine and the rush of air.

"Oh?"

"As soon as you named the place... I knew I needed to do something there."

"Yeah," Renee said. "Sure thing."

Kate nodded and laid her head back across the seat.

\----

After the rest of the blessedly uneventful drive and Renee's fill of photos, they found themselves walking toward the speck in the desert.

The moved in almost total silence, occasionally sipping water. Kate forged ahead with sureness at a standard quick march cadence, her eyes unwavering from the speck. Even considering her wrecked voice, she didn't seem in the mood to talk, and Renee was too focused on keeping up anyway.

Only once did Kate pause, to pluck a flat, smooth, golf-ball-sized stone from the ground.

Now it clicked.

"A memorial," Renee said. "Right?"

Kate kept walking. "Yes," she whispered.

The speck gradually resolved into a rough campsite: a vintage camper trailer with a makeshift awning formed by a blanket and wooden stake, and a blackened area of sand about ten feet across, twenty feet from the trailer door.

As they neared, Renee noticed it looked abandoned. No lights. Debris strewn everywhere; a tire there, an oil drum, an upturned cooler.

Kate finally stopped about forty feet from the trailer.

"Hello!" she called.

Silence. A coyote poked its head out from under the trailer, then trotted away from them into the desert. Renee examined the scorched sand closer and saw what looked like bones. She felt the hairs on her arms stand up.

"Kate," Renee whispered. "What _is_ this place?"

Kate swallowed. "I was here a few years back," she said. "Just before Medusa attacked Gotham. You remember?"

"Absolutely." She had still been in Blüdhaven at the time, and everything had stopped that night as the whole city watched the spectacle across the river.

"Wonder Woman and I had tracked a lead here, and--"

"Wait, you've met _Wonder Woman?_ " Renee said with a surprised, teasing grin. "And you didn't tell me? I mean, I kinda figured you did during that 'man flu' thing or whatever, but still."

Kate managed a small smile of her own. "Sorry." The smile slowly faded. "Anyway, our lead was... one of Medusa's sons. Pegasus."

"And he _lived_ here?"

"Yeah." She swallowed again. "One of Medusa's _other_ sons had gotten to him some time before we did."

"Oh no," Renee said. "Was he..."

"Not dead," said Kate. "That's the real fucked part." She took a breath. "Pegasus was a demigod. And apparently, they take eons to heal. His brother... took advantage of that fact."

Renee blinked. "Jesus." She felt a chill only partly caused by the cooling desert. "What happened?"

"He gave us information in exchange for killing him," Kate said, bluntly. "Wonder Woman cut his head off right there." She nodded toward a spot just in front of the door. "I burned his body."

Kate glared at the scorched circle of sand. Her breath whistled in her nose the way it did when she was especially mad.

 _What the hell do you even say to that?_ Renee thought. She tried not to think about those bones.

She stepped in and hugged Kate around the shoulders. "If he _wanted_ it... if he really _was_ in that kind of pain... that sounds like the right thing."

"I still don't know," Kate said. "And I don't know if Pegasus was good or not. I just know he didn't deserve what happened to him."

Slowly, she went forward to the edge of the scorch, then crouched and gently set the stone on the edge of the black sand. Back up with the same reverence, never turning her back. She returned Renee's hug.

"You know I don't believe in coincidences," Kate said. "That's why I knew I had to come here. It... would have been wrong not to."

"Yes, it would," Renee said. "Plus, it was pretty."

"Yeah."

They stood that way a few moments, listening to the wind, staring at the stone.

Something tickled at Renee's mind.

"Demigods..." she said at last. "Was there some kinda... I dunno, 'power of belief' thing going on?"

Kate smiled sadly. "That's what Wonder Woman said. That he -- and others, I guess -- could come back if enough people believe. I don't think that's possible without also keeping the memory alive."

Renee took a deep breath. "Then I want to leave one, too," she said. "If that's okay."

Kate looked at her, and slowly nodded. "More than okay. Get a similar-looking rock, same size."

It was a quick find, and soon Renee approached the scorch with her own stone.

"Put it right on top," Kate said. Renee obeyed, with the same reverence.

Again they stood in silence.

"Gettin' dark," Kate said after a while. And with that, they headed toward the car, again without words.

Halfway there, Renee broke the silence. "Do you think it'll work? That he could actually come back?"

"I don't know," Kate said. "Really I don't." She shrugged. "But that's kinda the point, isn't it?"


End file.
